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==Fair Use rationale for use on [[WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role]]==
This article gives an overview about '''[[religion]] in [[Nazi Germany]]''' and [[Nazism| the Nazis]]' complex and sometimes contradictory relationship with religion. For the role of [[paganism]] and the [[occult]] in formulating the views of Hitler and the [[Nazi Party]], see the article [[religious aspects of Nazism]].
{{Non-free use rationale
|Article=WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role
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==Fair Use rationale for use on [[WWE SmackDown (video game series)]]==
==Nazism and Religion==
{{Non-free use rationale
Several elements of Nazism suggest to look at its relation towards religion. The cult around Hitler as the ''Führer'', the "huge congregations, banners, sacred flames, processions, a style of popular and radical preachings, prayers-and-responses, memorials and funeral marches" can easily be considered as the "essential props for the cult of race and nation, the mission of Aryan Germany and victory over her enemies."<ref> Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, [[Black Sun (Goodrick-Clarke book)|Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity ]], p.1.</ref> These kinds of [[religious aspects of Nazism]] have led a variety of scholars to consider Nazism some kind of [[political religion]]. Contemporary scholarship has actually moved away from thesis of [[secularization]] and observes for the last third of the 20th century, in the words of [[Hugh Heclo]], a "reentry into the political arena of precisely those traditional religions that secular modernity was supposed to have made obsolete."<ref>Hugh Heclo, Religion and Public Policy, p.16; Journal of Policy History, Vol 13. No.1, 2001</ref> Heclo, who recently published a book ''Christianity and American democracy'', argues that "religion is to have a place in public life"<ref name="Helco14">Hugh Heclo, Religion and Public Policy, p.14; Journal of Policy History, Vol 13. No.1, 2001</ref> and emphasizes it's importance for a developed democracy:
|Article=WWE SmackDown (video game series)
<blockquote>
|Description=Screenshot showing typical gameplay of ''WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role'' for the Sony Playstation
"If traditional religion is absent from the public arena, secular religions are likely to satisfy man's quest for meaning. ... It was an atheistic faith in man as creator of his own grandeur that lay at the heart of Communism, fascism and all the horrors they unleashed for the twentieth century. And it was adherents of traditional religions - a Martin Niemöller, C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Buber - who often warned most clearly of the tragedy to come from attempting to build man's own version of the New Jerusalem on Earth."<ref name="Helco14"/>
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</blockquote>

Considering the religious imagery of Nazism such an argument seems plausible: Clearly, Nazism, with Hitler's plans for a magnificent new capital at Berlin ([[Welthauptstadt Germania]]), can be described as attempting to build a version of the New Jerusalem.<ref>"The Nazi crusade was indeed essentially religious in its adoption of apocalyptic beliefs and fantasies including a New Jerusalem (cf. Hitler's plans for a magnificent new capital at Berlin)..." Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, [[The Occult Roots of Nazism]], p. 203.</ref> But this leaves for the historian the task to see whether Nazism (and other modern political movements) can actually be described in their relation to religion. And in an important work from 2003 the historian [[Richard Steigmann-Gall]] comes to controversial conclusion that "Christianity, in the final analysis, did not constitute a barrier to Nazism."<ref>Steigmann-Gall 2003: 261</ref> Furthermore, he comments on the reason why Nazism is quite often seen as the opposite of Christianity:

<blockquote>
"What we suppose Nazism must surely have been about usually tells us as much about contemporary societies as about the past purportedly under review. The insistence that Nazism was an anti-Christian movement has been one of the most enduring truisms of the past fifty years. ... Exploring the possibility that many Nazis regarded themselves as Christian would have decisively undermined the myths of the Cold War and the regeneration of the German nation ... Nearly all Western societies retain a sense of Christian identity to this day. ... That Nazism as the world-historical metaphor for human evil and wickedness should in some way have been related to Christianity can therefore be regarded by many only as unthinkable."<ref>Steigmann-Gall 2003: 266</ref>

</blockquote>

The opposition of many adherents of traditional religions to Nazism is only one side of the issue. Within the [[Lutheranism by region#Germany|Lutheran Churches in Germany]], the most prominent members of the ''Bekennende Kirche'' ([[Confessing Church]]), [[Martin Niemöller]] and [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], opposed Nazism. They were, however, (as of 1932) in the minority in the [[Evangelical Church in Germany]], compared to the ''Deutsche Christen'' ([[German Christians]]), who supported National Socialism and cooperated with the Nazis. However, even the "Confessing Church made frequent declarations of loyalty to Hitler".<ref>Steigmann-Gall 2003: 5,6 </ref>

==Institutional Religion in Germany 1933-1945==
{| align="right" border="1"
|+ ''Kirchenaustritte'' 1932-1944<ref>In full thousand, rounded down. Numbers for Protestantism and Catholicism are approximates. Source: Granzow et al. 2006: 40, 207 </ref>
! !! Cath. !! Protest. !! Total
|-
! 1932 || 52 000 || 225 000 || 277 000
|-
! 1933 || 34 000 || 57 000 || 91 000
|-
! 1934 || 27 000 || 29 000 || 56 000
|-
! 1935 || 34 000 || 53 000 || 87 000
|-
! 1936 || 46 000 || 98 000 || 144 000
|-
! 1937 || 104 000 || 338 000 || 442 000
|-
! 1938 || 97 000 || 343 000 || 430 000
|-
! 1939 || 95 000 || 395 000 || 480 000
|-
! 1940 || 52 000 || 160 000 || 212 000
|-
! 1941 || 52 000 || 195 000 || 247 000
|-
! 1942 || 37 000 || 105 000 || 142 000
|-
! 1943 || 12 000 || 35 000 || 49 000
|-
! 1944 || 6 000 || 17 000 || 23 000

|}


Christianity in Germany has, since the [[Protestant Reformation]], been divided into two ''Konfessionen'', Catholicism and Protestantism. The standard translation of ''Konfession'' as [[Religious denomination|denomination]] has been considered misleading, since it might suggest that the context of religion in Germany could be described with the common parabola of the ''religious marketplace'', which is not the case.<ref name="SG2003-XV">Steigmann-Gall 2003:XV</ref> In Germany, "to this day religion nominally remains a state affair."<ref name="SG2003-XV"/> For the large churches in Germany (Catholic and ''evangelisch'') the German government collects the [[church tax]], which is then given to the Churches. For this reason membership in the Catholic or Protestant (''evangelische'') Church is officially registered. It is important to keep this 'official aspect' in mind when turning to such questions as the [[Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs|religious beliefs of Adolf Hitler]] or [[Joseph Goebbels]]. Both men had ceased to attend Catholic services or to take [[Confession]]s long before 1933, but had neither left the church nor refused to pay their church taxes.<ref name="SG2003-XV"/> They could thus be classified as nominally Catholic.<ref name="SG2003-XV"/>

===="Kirchenaustritt" - Leaving the Church ====

The option to leave the church (''Kirchenaustritt'') existed in Germany since 1873, when [[Otto von Bismarck]] had introduced it as part of the [[Kulturkampf]] aimed against Catholicism.<ref name="Grw39">Granzow et al. 2006: 39</ref> For parity this was made possible for Protestants, too, and for the next 40 years mostly they took advantage of it.<ref name="Grw39"/> Statistics exist since 1884 (Protestantism) and 1917 (Catholicism), respectively.<ref name="Grw39"/>

An analysis of this data for the time of the Nazi rule is available in a paper by Sven Granzow et al., published in a collection edited by [[Götz Aly]]. Altogether more Protestants than Catholics left their church, however, overall Protestants and Catholics decided similarly.<ref name="Grw50">Granzow et al. 2006: 50</ref> The number of ''Kirchenaustritte'' reached its "historical high"<ref name="Grw58">Granzow et al. 2006: 58</ref> in 1939 when it peaked at 480 000.

==Protestantism==
===Martin Luther===
{{see|Martin Luther|Luther and antisemitism}}
During the First and Second World War, German leaders used the writings of Luther to make Luther appear as if he would have been an active supporter of German nationalism.<ref>Wiley InterScience: Jan Herman Brinks - [http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2265.00062 Luther and the German State] (Abstract)</ref> At the 450th anniversary of Luther's birth, which took place only a few months after the Nazi Seizure of Power in 1933, there were celebrations conducted on a large scale both by the Protestant Churches and the Nazi Party.<ref name="SG2003-1">Steigmann-Gall 2003:1</ref> At a celebration at [[Königsberg]] (which after 1945 became [[Kaliningrad]]) [[Erich Koch]], at that time [[Gauleiter]] of East Prussia, made a speech which, among other, compared [[Adolf Hitler]] and Luther and claimed that the Nazis fought with Luther's spirit.<ref name="SG2003-1"/> Such a speech might be dismissed as mere propaganda,<ref name="SG2003-1"/> but, as Steigmann-Gall points out: "Contemporaries regarded Koch as a bona fide Christian who had attained his position [of the elected president of a provincial Church synod] through a genuine commitment to Protestantism and its institutions."<ref name="SG2003-2">Steigmann-Gall 2003:2</ref>

The prominent Protestant theologian [[Karl Barth]] opposed this appropriation of Luther in the [[German Empire]] and Nazi Germany, when he stated in 1939 that the writings of [[Martin Luther]] were used by the Nazis to glorify the State and State absolutism:''"The German people suffer under his error of the relation between law and bible, between secular and spiritual power,"''<ref>Karl Barth, Eine Schweizer Stimme, Zürich 1939, 113</ref> in which Luther divided the [[temporal]] State from the inward focusing spiritual, thus limiting the ability of the individual or the church to question the actions of the State, which was seen as a God ordained instrument.

On February 1940, Barth accused German Lutherans specifically of separating biblical teachings from its teachings of the State and thus legitimizing the Nazi State ideology.<ref>Karl Barth, Eine Schweizer Stimme, Zürich 1940, 122</ref> He was not alone with his view. A few years earlier on October 5, 1933, ''Pastor Wilhelm Rehm'' from Reutlingen, declared publicly, that “Hitler would not have been possible, without Martin Luther.<ref>in Heinonen, Anpassung und Identität 1933-1945 Göttingen 1978 p.150</ref> though many have also made this same statement about other influences in Hitler's rise to power. "Without [[Lenin]], Hitler would not have been possible." as stated by Historian [[Paul Johnson]]<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/time100/johnson_chat.html TIME 100: Leaders & Revolutionaries - Historian Paul Johnson 4/8/98 Yahoo Chat<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref>

=== [[German Christians| Deutsche Christen]] ===

[[German Christians]] constituted the strongest Protestant movement in Germany after the 1932 Church elections, with the aim of synthesising Christianity with the ideology of National Socialism. There were various groups within the Deutsche Christians, some more radical than others, but united in the goal of establishing a national socialist Protestantism <ref>Hans Buchheim, Glaubenskrise im 3. Reich,Stuttgart, 1953, 41-156 </ref> Deutsche Christen abolished the [[Jewish]] traditions, some but not all rejected the [[Old Testament]] altogether. They rejected academic [[theology]] as sterile and not populist enough and were often anti-Catholic. On November 1933, A Protestant mass rally of the Deutsche Christians, which brought together a record 20 000 persons, passed three resolutions:

* ''[[Adolf Hitler]] is the completion of the reformation'',
* ''Baptized [[Jew]]s are to be dismissed from the Church''
* ''The [[Old Testament]] is to be excluded from Sacred Scriptures.''<ref>Buchheim, Glaubnskrise im 3.Reich,124-136</ref>

Adolf Hitler converted to Protestantism and joined the German Christians, according to the National Secretary Klundt on April 25, 1933 in Königsberg, Eastern Prussia <ref>Friedrich Baumgärtel, wider die Kirchenkampf Legenden, Neuendettelsau, 1959 54</ref> An official confirmation or denial was not issued by the Chancellor.

=== [[Ludwig Müller|Reichs Bishop Ludwig Müller]] ===
[[Ludwig Müller]] (1883 - 1945 ) after his first meeting with Hitler was convinced that he had a divine responsibility to promote Hitler and his ideals,<ref>Manfred Korschoke, Geschichte der bekennenden Kirche Göttingen, 1976 495</ref> and together with Hitler, he favoured a unified Reichskirche of Protestants and Catholics. This Reichskirche was to be a loose federation in the form of a council, but subordinated to the National Socialist State.<ref>Hermann Rauschning, Gespräche mit Hitler, Zürich, 1940 54</ref> Ludwig Müller headed the German Christians which increased to about 600 000 members in the mid-thirties and won all Church elections since 1932, after dissenters were silenced by expulsion or violence.<ref>{{cite book |author=Thomsett, Michael C. |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=The German opposition to Hitler: the resistance, the underground, and assassination plots, 1938-1945 |date=1997 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, N.C. |isbn=0-7864-0372-1 |pages=63}}</ref> However he could not deliver on conforming all Christians to National Socialistism, and Hitler’s condescending attitudes toward protestants increased: "Protestant clergy, don’t believe in anything except their well-being and office".<ref>Rauschning, Gespräche mit Hitler, 60</ref><ref>Rauschning, Gespräche mit Hitler, 61 </ref> However, the personal relation between Reichsbischof Müller and Hitler remained cordial and good to 1945, when both committed suicide. Of lasting value of Bishop Müller's efforts was the recognition of the National Socialist State of "The German Evangelical Church" as a legal entity on July 14, 1933, al law which promised a melting of State, people and Church into one body.<ref>Reichsgesetzblatt des deutschen Reiches 1933, I,1, p.47</ref>

===General views ===
The level of ties between Nazism and the Protestant churches has been a contentious issue for decades. One difficulty is that ''Protestantism'' includes a vast number of religious bodies many of whom had little relation to each other. Added to that, Protestantism tends to allow more variation among individual congregations than Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which makes statements about "official positions" of denominations problematic. Still, many Protestant organizations or denominations were solidly opposed to Nazism after the nature of the movement was better understood. Many Protestants including Rev. [[Martin Niemoller]], who was imprisoned in 1937 under the charge of "misuse of the pulpit to vilify the State and the Party and attack the authority of the Government."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,759113,00.html Dynamite - TIME<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref> resisted and some even died because of their efforts. The forms or offshoots of Protestantism that advocated pacificism, [[anti-nationalism]], or racial equality tended to oppose in the strongest terms. Prominent Protestant, or Protestant offshoot, groups known for their efforts against Nazism include the [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] and the [[Confessing Church]]. Many of their members died in the camps or struggled fiercely against the Nazis.

Yet [[Lutherans]] voted for Hitler more than [[Catholics]]. Different German states possessed regional social variations as to class densities and religious denomination;<ref>see Jackson J. Spielvogel, ''Hitler and Nazi Germany'' ISBN 0-13-189877-9</ref> Richard Steigmann-Gall alleges a linkage between several Protestant churches and Nazism,<ref>Steigmann-Gall, R., ''The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945'' ISBN 0-521-82371-4 </ref> the main aspect being Hitler's citing anti-Semitic pamphlets by [[Martin Luther]] and accusations that the Lutheran establishment supported Hitler. The small Methodist population at times was deemed foreign; this stemmed from the fact that [[Methodism]] began in [[England]], while it did not develop in Germany until the nineteenth century with [[Christoph Gottlob Müller]] and Louis Jacoby. Because of this history they felt the urge to be "more German than the Germans" to avoid suspicion. Methodist Bishop [[John L. Nelsen]] toured the U.S. on Hitler's behalf to protect his church, but in private letters indicated that he feared or hated Nazism, and so retired to Switzerland. Methodist Bishop [[F. H. Otto Melle]] took a far more collaborationist position that included apparently sincere support for Nazism. He felt that serving the Reich was both a patriotic duty and a means of advancement. To show his gratitude, Hitler made a gift of 10,000 marks in 1939 to a Methodist congregation to purchase an organ.<ref>[http://hist.academic.claremontmckenna.edu/jpetropoulos/church/keithpage/protesta.htm#The%20Protestant%20Church%20and%20the%20Third%20Reich Protestant Churches in the Third Reich<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref>
Outside of Germany, Melle's views were overwhelmingly rejected by most Methodists.
The leader of pro-Nazi segment of Baptists was Paul Schmidt. Hitler also led to the unification of Pro-Nazi Protestants in the [[Protestant Reich Church]] which was led by [[Ludwig Müller]]. The idea of such a "national church" was possible in the history of mainstream German Protestantism, but National Churches devoted primarily to the state were generally forbidden among the [[Anabaptists]], [[Jehovah's Witnesses]], and in [[Catholicism]].

During the 1930s Hitler tried to nationalize Germany's churches ([[German Christian]]), with restrictions allowing only German membership. Some Protestants resisted by forming the [[Confessing Church]]. A common Nazi song replaced the words to the German carol [[Silent Night (song)|Silent Night]] with the following lyrics:

:Silent night! Holy night!
:All is calm, and all is bright
:Only the Chancellor steadfast in fight
:Watches o’er Germany by day and by night
:Always caring for us.
:Silent night! Holy night!
:All is calm, and all is bright
:Adolf Hitler is Germany’s wealth
:Brings us greatness, favour and health
:Oh give us Germans all power!

After a failed assassination on Hitler's life in 1943 which involved [[Martin Niemöller]], [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], and other elements of the [[Confessing Church]] (a Protestant organization), Hitler ordered the arrest of Protestant, mainly Lutheran clergy. Catholic clergy were also suppressed if they spoke out against the regime.

==Catholicism==<!-- This section is linked from [[Pope John Paul II]] -->
The attitude of the Nazi party to the Church ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.<ref name = "oktyar">Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.41 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref> Many Nazis were [[anti-clerical]] in both private and public life.<ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.42 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref> The Nazi party had decidedly [[pagan]] elements.<ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.148 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref> One position is that the Church and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic Weltanschaung" claiming the whole of the person.<ref name = "oktyar"/>

Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their [[Kulturkampf]]s prematurely, such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, being put off while they dealt with other enemies.<ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] pp. 31, 42, 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref>

====Bernhard Stempfle====
A certain [[priest]] called [[Father]] [[Bernhard Stempfle]] is credited with having helped editing ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' during his imprisoned days in the [[Bavaria|state]] [[prison]] at [[Landsberg am Lech]] together with Hitler.{{Fact|date=September 2007}} However, in 1934, after the [[Night of the Long Knives]] Stempfle was found dead in a wood near [[Munich]], with his heart pierced and three [[bullet]]s through his head. Stempfle is said to have been a member of the [[Hieronymites]], and sources mention that the reason for his assassination was probably secret, private knowledge about Hitler. Allegations that Stempfle was the [[confessor]] of Hitler must however be firmly dismissed, as Hitler no longer received any of the [[sacrament]]s after he had left the Austrian family home many years before the [[First World War]].<ref>Michael Rissmann, ''Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators'', Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, p. 94-96 ISBN [[3-85842-421-8]].</ref>

====Church hierarchy====
The nature of the Nazi Party's relations with the [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic Church]] is also complicated. Before Hitler rose to power, many Catholic priests and leaders vociferously opposed Nazism on the grounds of its incompatibility with Christian morals. Nazi Party membership was forbidden until the takeover and a policy reversal. At his trial [[Franz von Papen]] said that until 1936 the Catholic Church hoped for a Christian alignment to the beneficial aspects he said they saw in national socialism. (This statement came after [[Pope Pius XII]] ended Von Papen's appointment as ''Papal chamberlain'' and ambassador to the [[Holy See]], but before his restoration under [[Pope John XXIII]].)

<!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: [[Image:Das Schwarze Korps Eugenio Pacelli Judenfreund Feind des Nationalsozialismus.jpg|thumb|right|270px|[[Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli]], future Pius XII, attacked by Nazi papers as a friend of [[Jew]]s and western [[Communism|communists]]. ''[[Das Schwarze Korps]]'' ran many [[Anti-Catholicism|anti-Catholic]] articles and cartoons, in likeness to [[Julius Streicher|Streicher's]] ''[[Der Stürmer]]''.]] -->
In 1937 Pope [[Pius XI]] issued the [[encyclical]] [[Mit brennender Sorge]] condemning Nazi ideology, notably the [[Gleichschaltung]] policy directed against religious influence upon education, as well as Nazi [[racism]] and [[antisemitism]]. The encyclical [[Humani Generis Unitas]] however was never published. The massive Catholic opposition to the [[euthanasia]] programs led them to be quietly ended in August 28, 1941, (according to Spielvogel pp. 257-258) but the German Catholics only at some occasions actively and openly protested Nazi anti-Semitism in any comparable way, except for several bishops and priests like bishop [[Clemens von Galen]] of [[Münster]]; this might have been due to the restrictions imposed upon the small, remaining Catholic press by the Nazi government after the 1941 debacle about euthanasia.

In Nazi Germany, all known political dissenters were imprisoned, and many German priests were sent to the concentration camps for their opposition, including the parson of the Berlin Cathedral [[Bernhard Lichtenberg]] and seminarian [[Karl Leisner]]. Hitler was never directly [[excommunication|excommunicated]] by the Catholic Church and several Catholic bishops in Germany or Austria are recorded as encouraging prayers of support for "The Führer"; this despite the fact the original [[Reichskonkordat]] (1933) of Germany with the [[Holy See]] proscribed any active political participation by the priesthood.

Criticism also arose in that the Vatican pontificate headed by [[Pope Pius XI]] and [[Pope Pius XII]] had remained circumspect about the national-scale race hatred before 1937 ([[Mit brennender Sorge]]). In 1937, just before the publishing of the anti-Nazi encyclical, [[Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli]] in [[Lourdes, France]] condemned discrimination against Jews and the [[neopaganism]] of the Nazi regime. A statement by Pius XI on 8 September 1938 spoke of the "inadmissibility" of anti-semitism, but Pius XII is criticised by people like [[John Cornwell (writer)|John Cornwell]] for being unspecific. Pius XI may have underestimated the degree that Hitler's ideas influenced the laity in light of hopes the Concordate would preserve Catholic influences amongst them. The evolution of the Vatican's understanding has faced criticism of weakness, slowness, or even culpability. On culpability this is perhaps clearest with regards to the German hierarchy as after the Concordate there was a radical reversal of the former episcopal condemnation of Nazism, according to [[Daniel Goldhagen]] and others. It is less certain in other cases. From the other extreme the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the [[Netherlands]] officially and formally condemned Nazism in 1941 and therefore faced violence and deportation of its priests, along with attacks upon monasteries and Catholic hospitals, and, the deportation of thousands of Jews to Auschwitz, who were hiding in the Catholic institutions, among them the famous Saint [[Edith Stein]]. Likewise, the Polish Roman Catholic hierarchy was violently attacked by the Nazis and saw thousands of its clerics sent to concentration camps or simply killed, a famous example of this being Father [[Maksymilian Kolbe]]. Most nations' hierarchy took a mixture of the two positions, oscillating between collaboration and active resistance.

Tangential to the more extreme of collaborationist accusations is the characterisation that Nazism actively based itself on a similar pontifical structure and corps of functionaries. For example the special clothing, ghettoization, and badges demanded of Jews were once common or even began in the [[Papal States]]. Also that the Nazis saw themselves as an effective replacement of Catholicism that would co-opt its unity and respect for hierarchy. Hence attempts were made to unite other religions, as in the earlier example of the [[Protestant Reich Church]].

In 1941 the Nazi authorities decreed the dissolution of all [[monastery|monasteries]] and [[abbey]]s in the German Reich, many of them effectively being occupied and secularized by the [[Allgemeine SS]] under Himmler. However, on July 30, 1941 the ''Aktion Klostersturm'' (Operation Monastery) was put to an end by a decree of Hitler, who feared the increasing protests by the Catholic part of German population might result in passive rebellions and thereby harm the Nazi war effort at the eastern front.<ref>Mertens, Annette, ''Himmlers Klostersturm: der Angriff auf katholische Einrichtungen im Zweiten Weltkrieg und die Wiedergutmachung nach 1945'', Paderborn; München ; Wien; Zürich : Schöningh, 2006, pp. 33, 120, 126.</ref>

The Christian Churches were amongst the first victims of Nazi war crimes in the rise to power of the Nazis, and detailed plans were made to eliminate them after power was secured.<ref>http://www.lawandreligion.com/publications/churches.pdf</ref>

==Nazism and Christianity==
===Nazi Attitudes towards Christianity ===
Hitler and other Nazi leaders clearly made use of both [[Christian]] symbolism combined with indigenous [[Germanic paganism|Germanic pagan]] imagery mixed with ancient [[Rome|Roman]] symbolism and emotion in [[propaganda]] for the German public and this worried protestants.<ref name=Ross1935>{{citation |author=Ross, ALBION |year=1935, November 3rd. |title="PAGANISM WORRIES REICH PROTESTANTS; They Are Distrustful of Nazis, Fearing Trap in the New Church Dictatorship" |journal=THE NEW YORK TIMES. |pages=E5 }}</ref>
Many Nazi leaders subscribed either to a mixture of then modern scientific theories {{Fact|date=June 2008}}, as Hitler himself did {{Fact|date=June 2008}}, or to mysticism and occultism, which was especially strong in the SS. Central to both groupings was the belief in Germanic (white Northern-European) racial superiority. The existence of a Ministry of Church Affairs, instituted in 1935 and headed by [[Hanns Kerrl]], was hardly recognized by ideologists such as [[Alfred Rosenberg]] or by other political decision-makers.

Despite [[Germany]]'s long history as the seat of the [[Holy Roman Empire]] and the birthplace of the [[Reformation]], [[Christianity]] was in a decline during the rise of the [[Nazi Party]]. Some of the factors leading to this decline were the after effects of [[World War I]] which challenged "traditional" European viewpoints. {{Fact|date=December 2007}}

Some Nazis promoted [[Positive Christianity]] which attempted to replace traditional Christian beliefs with those agreeable with Nazism, which many German Christians accepted.<ref name='gall'>Richard Steigmann–Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) p. 5</ref> Even in the later years of the Third Reich, many Protestant and Catholic clergy within Germany persisted in believing that Nazism was in its essence in accordance with Christian precepts.<ref name="gall" /> Typically those who persisted were considered a threat to Nazi ideology and marginalized or censored. For example:<blockquote>Grundmann’s continuous efforts to obtain the permission for a periodical were treated in a dilatory way, and an internal note of the Propaganda Ministry gave the following reasons for this attitude:<blockquote>The endeavors of this organization and its leading men such as Prof. Grundmann are well meant. But there is no interest either in assimilating (angleichen) Christian teaching in national socialism or in proving that a re-shaped (umgestaltetes) Christianity is not fundamentally Jewish (keine judische Grundhaltung aufweist).</blockquote>On a specific occasion, even a more negative attitude was revealed. When several persons of the Ministry of Propaganda were invited to a meeting of the Institute in Berlin on January 15, 1942, at which Professors Grundmann and Werdermann were to lecture, a high official of the Ministry noted in pencil on the invitation: ‘If such lectures at present are considered desirable at all, they should be watched.’
</blockquote><ref>(Hitler's Professors: The Part of Scholarship in Germany's Crimes Against the Jewish People by Max Weinreich (New York: The Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1946) : 67)</ref>

In 1941, [[Martin Bormann]], a close associate of Hitler said publicly "National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable"<ref>[http://mynym.blogspot.com/2004/11/nazism.html Into Good and Evil, the Anti-Neitzschean Mind<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref> In 1942 he also declared in a confidential memo to Gauleiters that the Christian Churches 'must absolutely and finally be broken.' Thus it is evident that he believed Nazism, based as it was on a 'scientific' world-view, to be completely incompatible with Christianity<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/bormann.html Martin Bormann<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref>. <blockquote>
When we [National Socialists] speak of belief in God, we do not mean, like the naive Christians and their spiritual exploiters, a man-like being sitting around somewhere in the universe. The force governed by natural law by which all these countless planets move in the universe, we call omnipotence or God. The assertion that this universal force can trouble itself about the destiny of each individual being, every smallest earthly bacillus, can be influenced by so-called prayers or other surprising things, depends upon a requisite dose of naivety or else upon shameless professional self-interest</blockquote><ref>[http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/festjc/chap10.htm Martin Bormann - The Brown Eminence<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref>

Other members of the Hitler government, including Rosenberg, during the war formulated a thirty-point program for the "National Reich Church" which included:

* The National Reich Church claims exclusive right and control over all Churches.
* The National Church is determined to exterminate foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.
* The National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the [[Bible]].
* The National Church will clear away from its alters all [[Crucifix]]es, Bibles and pictures of [[Saint]]s.
* On the altars there must be nothing but [[Mein Kampf]] and to the left of the altar a sword.<ref>William Lawrence Shirer ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany'' - 1960 - 1257 pages
ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY FIFTEENTH PRINTING LIBRARY OF
CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 60-6729 Page 240.</ref>

Nazi party leaders viewed Christianity and National Socialism as competing world views (even though some Christians did not see a conflict) and Hitler planned to eliminate the Christian churches after securing control of his European empire. The churches were permitted some self governing and allowed to remain because Hitler did not want to risk strong opposition until other more pressing issues were dealt with.<ref>{{cite book |author=Bendersky, Joseph W. |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=A history of Nazi Germany: 1919-1945 |date=2000 |publisher=Burnham |location=Chicago, Ill. |isbn=978-0-8304-1567-0 |pages=165}}</ref>

From the mid 1930's, anti-Christian elements within the Nazi party became more prominent - they were restrained by Hitler who thought religion would die by its self as science advanced. Never the less the Party began to suppress religious teaching, closed religious youth movements and excluded religious instruction from the [[Hitler Youth]]. The public collection of money for religious charities was forbidden. In 1937 all confessing church seminaries and teaching was banned. Dissident protestants were forbidden to attend universities and state-sponsored denominational and privet religious schools were closed. During Hitlers dictatorship, more than 6,000 clergymen, on the charge of treasonable activity, were imprisoned or executed. <ref name=Overy2004>{{Citation | last = Overy | first = Richard | year = 2004 | title = The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia | isbn = 9780393020304 | publisher = W.W. Norton & Co. | page = 286-87}}</ref>

===Christianity and Nazi Anti-Semitism===
According to American [[historian]] [[Lucy Dawidowicz]], Anti-Semitism has a long history within Christianity. The line of "anti-Semitic descent" from Luther, the author of [[On the Jews and Their Lies]], to Hitler is "easy to draw." In her ''[[The War Against the Jews]], 1933-1945'', she contends that Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the "demonologized universe" inhabited by Jews. Dawidowicz writes that the similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings and modern anti-Semitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of ''Judenhass'', which can be traced to [[Haman (Bible)|Haman's]] advice to [[Ahasuerus]]. Although modern German anti-Semitism also has its roots in German [[nationalism]] and the [[liberalism|liberal]] revolution of 1848, [[Christianity|Christian]] Anti-Semitism she writes is a foundation that was laid by the [[Roman Catholic]] Church and "upon which Luther built."<ref>''The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945''. First published 1975; this Bantam edition 1986, p.23. ISBN 055334532X </ref> Dawidowicz' allegations and positions are criticized and not accepted by most historians however. For example, in "Studying the Jew" Alan Steinweis notes that, "Old-fashioned antisemitism, Hitler argued, was insufficient, and would lead only to pogroms, which contribute little to a permanent solution. This is why, Hitler maintained, it was important to promote 'an antisemitism of reason,' one that acknowledged the racial basis of Jewry."<ref>(Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany by Alan Steinweis :8)</ref> Interviews with Nazis by other historians show that the Nazis thought that their views were rooted in biology, not historical prejudices. For example, "S. became a missionary for this biomedical vision... As for anti-Semitic attitudes and actions, he insisted that “the racial question... [and] resentment of the Jewish race... had nothing to do with medieval anti-Semitism...” That is, it was all a matter of scientific biology and of community."<ref>(The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide by Robert Lifton :130)</ref>>

===Future plans of the Nazi government===
Historian [[Heinz Hürten]] (professor emeritus at the Catholic University of Eichstaett) argued that the Nazi party had plans for the [[Roman Catholic Church]], according to which the Church was supposed to "eat from the hands of the government." The sequence of these plans, he states, follow this sequence: an abolition of the [[clerical celibacy|priestly celibacy]] and a [[nationalisation]] of all church [[property]], the dissolution of [[monastic]] [[order (religious)|order]]s and religious [[Wiktionary:congregation|congregations]], and the influence of the Catholic Church upon education. Hutzen states that Hitler proposed to reduce vocations to the priesthood by forbidding seminaries from receiving applicants before their 25th birthdays, and thus had hoped that these men would marry beforehand, during the time (18 - 25 years) in which they were obliged to work in military or labour service. Also, along with this process, the Church's [[sacrament]]s would be revised and changed to so-called "Lebensfeiern", the non-Christian celebrations of different periods of life.<ref>HÜRTEN, H. ''`Endlösung` für den Katholizismus? Das nationalsozialistische Regime und seine Zukunftspläne gegenüber der Kirche'', in: ''Stimmen der Zeit'', 203 (1985) p. 535-538</ref>

There existed some considerable differences among officials within the Nazi Party on the question of Christianity. Goebbels, is purported to have feared the creation of a third front of Catholics against their regime in Germany itself. In his diary, Goebbels wrote about the "traitors of the Black International who again stabbed our glorious government in the back by their criticism", by which Hutzen states meant the indirectly or actively resisting Catholic clergymen (who wore black [[cassock]]s).<ref>HÜRTEN, H. ''`Endlösung` für den Katholizismus? Das nationalsozialistische Regime und seine Zukunftspläne gegenüber der Kirche'', in: ''Stimmen der Zeit'', 203 (1985) p. 534-546</ref>

==Other religions==
===Jehovah's Witnesses===

{{main|Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany}}

{{Expand-section|date=June 2008}}
===Esoteric groups===

In the 1930 there already existed an [[Esotericism in Germany and Austria|esoteric scene in Germany and Austria]]. The organisations of this spectrum were suppressed, but, unlike [[Suppression of Freemasonry#Nazi Germany and occupied Europe|Freemasonry in Nazi Germany]], not persecuted. The only secure case in which an occultist might have been sent to a concentration camp for his beliefs is that of [[Friedrich Bernhard Marby]]. ''Ernst Wachler'' a [[völkisch]]-esoteric author and a member of the 'old' [[Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft]] died in a concentration camp, but this was because his mother had been Jewish.

Also, some Nazi leaders had an interest in esotericism. [[Rudolf Hess]] had an interest in [[Anthroposophy]]. [[Himmler|Heinrich Himmler]] showed a strong interest in esoteric matters, too, although as Steigmann–Gall points out, Hitler and many of his key associates sometimes still attended Christian services of the nazified Reich Church.

The esoteric [[Thule-gesellschaft|Thule Society]] lent support to the [[German Workers' Party]], which was eventually transformed into the [[Nazi Party]] in 1920. [[Dietrich Eckart]], a remote associate of the Thule society, actually coached Hitler on his [[public speaking]] skills, and while Hitler has not been shown to have been a member of Thule, he received support from the group. Hitler later on dedicated ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' to Eckart. The racist-occult doctrines of [[Ariosophy]] contributed to the atmosphere of the [[völkisch movement]] in the [[Weimar Republic]] that eventually led to rise of [[Nazism]].

==Messianic aspects of Nazism?==
There has been significant literature on the potential [[religious aspects of Nazism]]. Sometimes it is even asked whether Hitler and the Nazi leadership were about to replace Christianity in Germany with a new religion in which Hitler was to be considered as the messiah. The strongest hint in this direction comes from [[Wilfried Daim]], who, in his book on the connection between [[Lanz von Liebenfels]] and Hitler, has brought a reprint of a document on a session on "the unconditional abolishment of all religious commitments (Religionsbekenntnisse) after the final victory (Endsieg) ... with a simultaneous proclamation of Adolf Hitler as the new messiah."<ref name=Daim>Wilfried Daim: ''Der Mann, der Hitler die Ideen gab,'' Vienna 1994, p. 222; quoted after: H. T. Hakl: ''Nationalsozialismus und Okkultismus''. {{de icon}} In: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: ''Die okkulten Wurzeln des Nationalsozialismus'', 1997, Graz, Austria: Stocker (German edition of ''[[The Occult Roots of Nazism]]''), p. 196</ref> This session report was preserved in a private collection and could, very likely, be fake, although Daim holds towards the authenticity of the document.<ref name=Daim /> Connected to this is the question if Hitler personally saw himself as the messiah of the German people; see [[Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs]]. Other evidence that Hitler was occasionally compared with [[Jesus]], or revered as a savior sent by God is a [[prayer]] recited by [[orphan]]s at [[orphanage]]s. It runs as follows:<ref>From the German Wikipedia, at [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_w%C3%A4hrend_des_Nationalsozialismus#Religi.C3.B6s_anmutende_Formen_der_Nationalsozialisten]. </ref>

====Prayer to Hitler====
:Führer, mein Führer, von Gott mir gegeben, beschütz und erhalte noch lange mein Leben
:Du hast Deutschland errettet aus tiefster Not, Dir verdank ich mein tägliches Brot
:Führer, mein Führer, mein Glaube, mein Licht
:Führer mein Führer, verlasse mich nicht

This translates roughly as:
:Leader, my Leader, given to me by [[God]], protect me and sustain my life for a long time
:you have rescued [[Germany]] out of deepest misery, to you I owe my daily bread
:Leader, my Leader, my belief, my light
:Leader my Leader, do not abandon me

==See also==

*[[religion and politics]]
*[[Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs]]
*[[Clerical fascism]]
*[[Neofascism and religion]]
*[[Positive Christianity]]

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Religion and politics]]
[[Category:Nazi Germany]]

[[de:Kirchen und Religionsgemeinschaften im Nationalsozialismus]]
[[es:Cristianos bajo el nacionalsocialismo]]
[[ko:나치즘과 종교]]
[[sv:Kristendomen och nazismen]]

==Referred literature==

*Sven Granzow, Bettina Müller-Sidibé, Andrea Simml 2006: ''Gottvertrauen und Führerglaube'', in: [[Götz Aly]] (ed.): ''Volkes Stimme. Skepsis und Führervertrauen im Nationalsozialismus'', Fischer TB 2006 {{de icon}}, pp. 38-58

*{{citation
|last=Steigmann-Gall
|first=Richard
|title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|publication-date = 2003
|isbn=978-0521823715
}}.

==External links==
*[http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=55161057430311 A review of Richard Steigmann-Gall's book on Nazism, Hitler, and Christianity.]

Revision as of 20:15, 10 October 2008

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